Amerikan Eagle (46 page)

Tony’s rifle, on the floor.

LaCouture said, “Nice going, leading us here. You did quite well, Inspector. Mind telling us how you figured out he was here?”

Sam forced the words out. “You were tracking me. All the time. Following me.”

LaCouture nodded. “Yeah, especially today. Think those observers were busy just watching the harbor? Hell, no. They were also busy watching you. To see where you went. Boy, by the time you got to the church, I was hell-bent for leather, following you. You see, there was a moment when—”

Sam kicked at the broken radio, and LaCouture looked down long enough for Sam to drop to a knee, raise the rifle, catch the surprised look in LaCouture’s eyes, slide his finger through the trigger guard, squeeze the trigger, and—

Click
.

He desperately worked the bolt as an unfired cartridge flew out, spun to the floor.

Click
.

LaCouture’s smile flickered.

Sam stood up clumsily. He threw the rifle at LaCouture’s feet.

“A setup. You filthy bastards. A setup. A loaded rifle that wouldn’t fire.”

The FBI man’s nod was triumphant. “Your brother didn’t escape from that labor camp. We practically gave him a get-out-of-jail-free card, made sure he didn’t get picked up along the way, made sure he believed he was part of a conspiracy to assassinate Hitler. There were other people involved, fellow travelers, mostly domestic Commies with a couple of NKVD boys tossed in, and they’re being picked up right now. Even me and Groebke, we played our parts—snooping around the police station, checking out your files and his files. Your brother was the perfect patsy, Inspector. Dumb bastard didn’t even think of test-firing the rifle. It had a disabled firing pin. You filled your role, too.”

“I led you right to him.” The word seemed to choke in his throat. “Why?”

“Because when Hitler finds out that the Kingfish’s FBI saved his Kraut ass, he’s going to be in a better mood,” LaCouture said. “Maybe make more treaty concessions. Buy more bombers, ships, guns, spend a fortune to kill Reds and put our people to work. A new era for them and us.” LaCouture reached into his coat pocket, pulled out a small pair of binoculars with a long leather strap. He tossed them over to Sam, who caught them with one hand. “Go ahead, take a look,” LaCouture said, motioning with his revolver. “Step over there and tell me what you see.”

Sam walked stiffly to the cut-out hole and brought the glasses up. He looked out across the harbor, to the Navy Yard and the moored gig. People were milling about, and there was Hitler, striding past an honor guard of sailors and marines. At the end of the reviewing line, standing by his open convertible, in a surprise move, was the President.

“Come on, Inspector, what do you see?”

Sam turned. “Nothing. There’s nothing I want to see.”

LaCouture said, “Oh, no, what’s there is the future. You’ve heard of Lindbergh’s wife, Anne, and her book? There’s a new wave coming, of strong countries and stronger men, to make things right. Parliaments and congresses and the people’s voice—forget them, that’s all over. There’s a new order coming our way, an order led by men like Hitler and Mussolini, and we’re going to join with a man like Long.”

Sam looked down at his brother’s blood. “Count me out.”

“No, we’re all part of it, every one of us,” the FBI man insisted. “You know”—his voice sounded dreamy, almost reflective—“last year I was sent to Germany, part of an exchange program, made some real good friends. They trusted me and I trusted them, and they took me on a long, long drive … someplace in what was once Poland … to one of their camps …”

Sam kept on staring at the blood, listening to the FBI man’s memories.

LaCouture said, “The camp, what a place … so simple, really, so simple. Just a place to deal with your enemies. You never saw such terrible beauty. They wouldn’t let me inside, but they told me what happened. These trains
came in, filled with your enemies, and everything they had was seized, and then they disappeared. They just disappeared. Your enemies came in full and alive, and then they didn’t exist anymore, and what a wonderful thing. We’ve barely begun here in the States, Inspector. We’ve just barely started to catch up to what the Germans can do, and they’re going to teach us so very much in the years ahead.”

Sam stayed silent.

“Do you understand now? Do you?” LaCouture pressed.

Sam looked up, thought of his tattoo, of Burdick, of Sarah and Toby, of his betrayed and murdered brother. “Yeah. I understand everything.”

He swung the binoculars at the end of their leather strap, breaking LaCouture’s nose.

LaCouture howled, brought both hands up to his bloodied face, and Sam dropped the binoculars, was back in high school, tackling the Southern son of a bitch, pounding him against the walls of the steeple, now on the filthy floor. He started punching the bastard in the ribs, in the jaw, in the ribs again, punching, flailing, getting punched in return, footsteps, shouts, and he was yanked up and off LaCouture, breathing hard, sobbing, one cheek bleeding, FBI agents holding him back.

LaCouture struggled to his feet, a lace-edged handkerchief against his face, smeared with blood. Sam wasn’t thinking, was just trying to break free, to get at the FBI guy, the one who had killed his brother, imprisoned his family. LaCouture came up to him, speaking thickly. “Through … that’s it … you and your family … they ain’t never gettin’ out of that camp, not ever, and you’ll be
with ’em before sundown, your wife and kid … they’ll get beat up and raped, and it’s all your fault, fool, all your stupid fault, asshole …”

Sam tried to get at him again, and LaCouture said, “Out. Get him out of here.”

Sam tried to at least to spit in the FBI man’s face, but two agents were already dragging him through the door.

He sat still, cheek bleeding, wrists aching, heart aching, everything aching. He was in the back of one of the FBI’s Ford sedans, handcuffed, deposited there by the FBI agents who had dragged him down from the steeple. A brother killed in a supposed plot to assassinate Hitler, and here he was, in a parking lot near the North Church with other FBI sedans and army trucks, waiting. Arrested for assaulting an FBI agent, and not just any agent—the agent who had saved Hitler’s life on this vital summit.

He shifted his weight, conscious of the pain in his body and of the tears that would not stop. His brother. Angry, committed, and blindly dedicated Tony. His burning sense of righteousness used against him in a plot he believed would set everything straight but in the end just made it worse. Sam could imagine President Long, bragging to Hitler about the plot, showing him the afternoon headlines, proving how dedicated the Americans were to
this new arrangement, this new world order. Like LaCouture said, this new wave was about to drown the old ways of democracy and individual liberty.

Damn that Tony, ready to sacrifice Sarah and Toby to kill Hitler. What right did he have?

That bastard. Because of him, they would all be in a labor camp. He lowered his head. He couldn’t stop crying.

The rear car door opened, and Sam looked over, bracing for another blow.

“Inspector,” Hans Groebke said, his eyes emotionless behind his glasses.

“Come here to gloat?”

“Hardly.” The Gestapo man held up a tiny key. “If you lean forward, I will release you.”

Sam stared at the man. “Not a chance. Get me uncuffed, and then I’m shot while trying to escape. Oldest trick you clowns have come up with.”

Groebke shook his head. “No, no trick. Lean forward, I will uncuff you. And then we can talk for a moment before I send you on your way.”

Sam struggled to gauge what was going on behind those quiet blue eyes, and then he gave up. He was just too damn tired. They’d finally defeated him. He had no fight left in him. He leaned forward. Groebke bent toward him, and there was a
click
as the cuffs were undone. Automatically, he brought his hands forward, rubbed at his wrists. Groebke said, “We shall speak, then, of deceit. And tricks. And appearances.”

“Sure,” Sam said bitterly. “You assholes used my brother as a tool, set him up. He had no chance at all. You got him out of the labor camp and here to Portsmouth,
where he could get killed like a dumb cow at a slaughterhouse.”

Groebke shook his head. He took out a packet of Lucky Strike cigarettes, pumped one out. “No, that was LaCouture’s business. Not mine.”

“Oh? What was your business?”

A wry smile as he placed the cigarette between his lips and lit it with a gold lighter. “To see that your brother succeeded. And in that, I failed very much indeed. I knew of many things, but not of the disabled rifle.”

“What the hell are you talking about?” Sam demanded.

“Sorry, I thought I made it clear. Although I will always deny that this conversation ever took place. You see, I wanted your brother to succeed, to kill my chancellor. That’s why I was here in Portsmouth, to make such things happen … to keep an eye on you … and to assist your brother if necessary. But I failed. He was contacted by LaCouture and his crew, the disabled rifle was provided, and now Hitler, that beast, will live, and many more innocents will die.”

“But … you’re goddamn
Gestapo
!”

“True. But first, remember, I am a cop. Just like you. A cop in a small Bavarian village, with obligations and duties, until I was promoted to where I am, eh? So what you see, what you think you see, may not always be the truth.”

“Some goddamn cop!”

“But I am also a German patriot, Inspector,” Groebke said quietly. “There are not many of us left, but we have tried to kill that monster. What he is doing to the innocents, in the camps and in the cities, he is doing in the name of the German people. If we lose this war, our name
and our culture will be stained for a thousand generations times a thousand.”

Sam was speechless. Groebke took another drag of his cigarette. “But there are other reasons. I had a brother, too. He was killed in the British landings. And for what? For the ravings of a madman who has the power to seize a people and their destiny.”

The Gestapo man turned slightly, as if he were trying to see the shipyard through the nearby buildings. “Now my madman is meeting your madman, to divide the world between them, to make it a place for their visions and appetites. And the one chance we had today, that single chance, is no more.” Groebke dropped his cigarette on the pavement, twisted a foot hard against it.

“Thanks for cutting me loose,” Sam told him. “I owe you one. But I’m going to be in a labor camp before this day is over.”

The German smiled. “It will be, as you Americans say, handled. Your FBI man, I have learned some things about him and his trip to my home country, and he owes me some things as well. Don’t worry, Inspector. You won’t be in a labor camp. He and I will no longer be in your lives.”

“My wife and boy …”

“I will try, but I don’t think I have that influence,” Groebke said. “Maybe later, but believe me, it is safer for them to be there and not here. I wouldn’t go to the camp to get them out by yourself—that would be far too dangerous. Too easy for you to get arrested there. Go back to your police station, Inspector. Your job here is done.”

Sam didn’t move. His cheeks were still wet from his
tears. “Why are you telling me all of this? What’s the point?”

Groebke shrugged. “LaCouture and the others, they think of me as the perfect Gestapo officer, eh? But you—I wanted you, Inspector Miller, to know who I really am, so when I leave this country, I will have the satisfaction that at least one American knows the real Hans Groebke. This is for you as well.”

The Gestapo man reached into his coat pocket and took out a revolver. Sam recognized it as his own. He took it and holstered it and wiped at his eyes, thinking of what Tony had said to him up in the steeple. “Yeah, my job. I did my part, too. As shitty as it was.”

Then he climbed out of the car started to walk out to Market Square.

Except for a desk sergeant reading a pulp western magazine in the dingy lobby, the building was deserted. The police station seemed to be the only refuge left for Sam; he could not return home, not now. Upstairs he trudged to the city marshal’s office, but that, too, was empty, as was Mrs. Walton’s desk.

He sat down heavily in his chair and stared at the piles of paper and memos and file folders at his desk without touching them. All this work that awaited him. For the briefest of moments, he felt a stirring of anticipation,
that with this whole summit fiasco concluded, he could go back to being a simple police inspector with a simple family, a simple life. If only he could get Sarah and Toby out, he could start again. It would be difficult, and it would take a very, very long time, but he just wanted it to be like it was two weeks before, before he found that dead body by the railroad tracks.

That’s all he wanted.

He stretched out his legs, looked down at his shoes, and saw stains there.

From his brother’s blood.

Sam put his arms on his desk, lowered his head, and wept.

* * *

Hours later, the piles had been sorted, some papers dumped, others reviewed, and some old case files reread. It had been routine, plodding work, and Sam almost cherished every moment. He had no idea what time it was; he didn’t care.

There were footsteps behind him. He turned, and Marshal Hanson stood there, a bland expression on his face. “The prodigal son returns,” Hanson remarked.

“If you like, sir,” Sam said. “I’ve been released from my federal duty.”

Hanson was dressed in a well-cut black suit. Sam saw that the man was swaying just the tiniest bit. Sam had never seen his boss drunk.

Hanson gently placed a hand on Sam’s back. “Jesus, son, I heard what happened today. A damn, damn shame. I sure wish it could have ended in a different way … but
there was no other choice, was there? Tony was trying to assassinate Hitler. It must have been a tremendous loss, but the summit had to be saved. In a way, it was a sacrifice—a hard sacrifice for the greater good.”

Sam forced the words out, thinking how Tony had been betrayed. Some sacrifice. “That’s true, and if you want a briefing of what went on, I’d be glad to—”